It's a Lazy Cat kind of day
Waiting to hear back from new job coach so I thought I'd go and play with my cats while I did.
The combined Voltron Legendary Defender version stands around 16 inches tall and is pretty chunky. It's also got a bit of heft to it, mostly due to the Black Lion's electronics. I do like how it looks, though wish the heads of Red and Green could retract, but because of the way the toy is constructed, there's not a lot of room for that. It is also hard to disassemble, for the record, so much so the arms have to be removed in a very certain way to prevent breakage and strain! For Playmate's first foray into the combining robot field, they've actually done a good job with show accuracy and construction. Rubber paws and tight racheting joints prevent the top heavy Voltron from toppling over, there's a lot of articulation, and the toy is actually smart enough to recognize which lions are attached and will call for the others if the combination is not finished.
A close up of the face. It's missing some red paint, but the major details are there, thankfully. I have to say that opening the jaw and pulling the horns up take quite a bit of force and a long fingernail though. That might be an issue for kids wanting to play with it.
Black Lion untransformed. Each paw has quite a number of joints allowing them to go up and down and even bend. The wings also can be pulled upward and flattened against its back, as well as rotate 360. Unlike the other lions, the Black Lion's tail is hard plastic that is on a hinge for transformation purposes. The claws are soft rubber and came out of the box slightly warped, but that was probably to be expected. (Speaking of the box, a plethora of twisty ties held this thing to the box and the cardboard insert had to be completely wrecked to release it. It was not easy unboxing it!) A button on its right side activates lights and sounds. There are about 50+ phrases and sound effects you can randomly cycle though, and while the lion mode has quite a few noises, you can only unlock all the sounds in the process of and after fully transforming into Voltron.
Black Lion's mouth can be opened without revealing the face, which is on a separate hinge that can be tucked into the upper jaw when not being displayed as Voltron. I like that choice of design because it just looks weird to have a face for a tongue like my Legacy Dragonzord does. Opening the mouth also reveals the ramp used by the Paladins to enter and or exit the lion. Little details like that are nice to see.
The limb lions are extremely poseable with over 20 points of articulation each! Here the Blue Lion shows me its best stalking pose. Each foot has about four joints, enabling a variety of walking, sitting, and stalking poses. Anything your cat can do, this one probably can too. The retractable rubber tail is also bendable and can be posed. Not shown is the cannon and missile that can be put on top of the Blue Lion. I prefer to display them without the weapons, which are removable but very springy. Missiles shoot quite far. The jaw can also be opened, but is spring loaded to snap shut for some reason if not held open. Also it's a very powerful spring and you can probably injure a finger if you put it in their mouths. I would probably supervise kids playing with them because of that. It's like a mini vise. @_@
Crouching Tiger Yellow Lion! Articulation is the same as Blue and it shares some of the same parts. It can also sit fairly well. The mouth of this one doesn't open as much as the others do though. It also came packaged with a disc launcher which is a lot more powerful than the missiles the others have. To avoid having to constantly dive under my bed looking for discs, I put that away too.
Green and Red are basically remolds and repaints, but also have a few differences compared to the legs. For one the tails are shorter, as there's that obvious joint in the middle that gives Voltron their elbow articulation and cannot be too long or else they would not retract. Holes in their mouth are for the sword, which came in two parts (to fully form the sword, you have to buy both Green and Red Lions, as each came with a piece. This also makes sense as Blazing Sword traditionally requires both lions to activate in the show). Now this is why the mouths are spring loaded and snap shut extremely tightly, so that the sword does not flop around (because it is quite large) as show below. Both lions also came with missile launcher cannons. It's worth noting that each missile is very unique to each lion and so cannot be swapped and fired from a different cannon.
I'm quite pleased with this set that I got from Amazon and don't regret it. I even got a bit of a discount for ordering it as a bundle as opposed to hitting up all my local major retailers (the limb lions can be found for $15-$17, Black for $27-$29), and saved a few dollars that way. It's also hard to find the small lions at retailers as they are shipped 4 to a box, one of each color, so anyone who buys even just one of the lions could make it difficult for someone missing that color to buy it. I hear Black Lions are more plentiful since it's packaged as a separate assortment, but of course being larger and having electronics it's also going to be more expensive.
I never had a Voltron toy as a kid, though I did play with a classic Voltron lion toy someone had at their house and was like extremely jealous of them. I grew up watching the show and so it was pretty great to see a new Netflix series about it. In fact I just finished watching Season 3 and look forward to 4 now. =^.^=
The combined Voltron Legendary Defender version stands around 16 inches tall and is pretty chunky. It's also got a bit of heft to it, mostly due to the Black Lion's electronics. I do like how it looks, though wish the heads of Red and Green could retract, but because of the way the toy is constructed, there's not a lot of room for that. It is also hard to disassemble, for the record, so much so the arms have to be removed in a very certain way to prevent breakage and strain! For Playmate's first foray into the combining robot field, they've actually done a good job with show accuracy and construction. Rubber paws and tight racheting joints prevent the top heavy Voltron from toppling over, there's a lot of articulation, and the toy is actually smart enough to recognize which lions are attached and will call for the others if the combination is not finished.
A close up of the face. It's missing some red paint, but the major details are there, thankfully. I have to say that opening the jaw and pulling the horns up take quite a bit of force and a long fingernail though. That might be an issue for kids wanting to play with it.
Black Lion untransformed. Each paw has quite a number of joints allowing them to go up and down and even bend. The wings also can be pulled upward and flattened against its back, as well as rotate 360. Unlike the other lions, the Black Lion's tail is hard plastic that is on a hinge for transformation purposes. The claws are soft rubber and came out of the box slightly warped, but that was probably to be expected. (Speaking of the box, a plethora of twisty ties held this thing to the box and the cardboard insert had to be completely wrecked to release it. It was not easy unboxing it!) A button on its right side activates lights and sounds. There are about 50+ phrases and sound effects you can randomly cycle though, and while the lion mode has quite a few noises, you can only unlock all the sounds in the process of and after fully transforming into Voltron.
Black Lion's mouth can be opened without revealing the face, which is on a separate hinge that can be tucked into the upper jaw when not being displayed as Voltron. I like that choice of design because it just looks weird to have a face for a tongue like my Legacy Dragonzord does. Opening the mouth also reveals the ramp used by the Paladins to enter and or exit the lion. Little details like that are nice to see.
The limb lions are extremely poseable with over 20 points of articulation each! Here the Blue Lion shows me its best stalking pose. Each foot has about four joints, enabling a variety of walking, sitting, and stalking poses. Anything your cat can do, this one probably can too. The retractable rubber tail is also bendable and can be posed. Not shown is the cannon and missile that can be put on top of the Blue Lion. I prefer to display them without the weapons, which are removable but very springy. Missiles shoot quite far. The jaw can also be opened, but is spring loaded to snap shut for some reason if not held open. Also it's a very powerful spring and you can probably injure a finger if you put it in their mouths. I would probably supervise kids playing with them because of that. It's like a mini vise. @_@
Crouching Tiger Yellow Lion! Articulation is the same as Blue and it shares some of the same parts. It can also sit fairly well. The mouth of this one doesn't open as much as the others do though. It also came packaged with a disc launcher which is a lot more powerful than the missiles the others have. To avoid having to constantly dive under my bed looking for discs, I put that away too.
Green and Red are basically remolds and repaints, but also have a few differences compared to the legs. For one the tails are shorter, as there's that obvious joint in the middle that gives Voltron their elbow articulation and cannot be too long or else they would not retract. Holes in their mouth are for the sword, which came in two parts (to fully form the sword, you have to buy both Green and Red Lions, as each came with a piece. This also makes sense as Blazing Sword traditionally requires both lions to activate in the show). Now this is why the mouths are spring loaded and snap shut extremely tightly, so that the sword does not flop around (because it is quite large) as show below. Both lions also came with missile launcher cannons. It's worth noting that each missile is very unique to each lion and so cannot be swapped and fired from a different cannon.
I'm quite pleased with this set that I got from Amazon and don't regret it. I even got a bit of a discount for ordering it as a bundle as opposed to hitting up all my local major retailers (the limb lions can be found for $15-$17, Black for $27-$29), and saved a few dollars that way. It's also hard to find the small lions at retailers as they are shipped 4 to a box, one of each color, so anyone who buys even just one of the lions could make it difficult for someone missing that color to buy it. I hear Black Lions are more plentiful since it's packaged as a separate assortment, but of course being larger and having electronics it's also going to be more expensive.
I never had a Voltron toy as a kid, though I did play with a classic Voltron lion toy someone had at their house and was like extremely jealous of them. I grew up watching the show and so it was pretty great to see a new Netflix series about it. In fact I just finished watching Season 3 and look forward to 4 now. =^.^=